Two months may have passed since Julia Roberts’s half-sister, Nancy Motes, was found dead of a drug overdose at 37, but Julia is just now speaking publicly about her loss for the first time.

“It’s just heartbreak,” Julia tearfully told the Wall Street Journal. “It’s only been 20 days. There aren’t words to explain what any of us have been through in these last 20 days. It’s hour by hour some days, but you just keep looking ahead.”

And while, last summer, Nancy called Julia out for her harsh criticism of her body, which sparked her to have gastric bypass surgery, she did say that they were working on repairing their relationship. Although it was, in Nancy’s words, “a work in progress,” Julia seems stricken with grief at the loss of her younger sister.

“You don’t want anything bad to happen to anyone, but there are so many tragic, painful, inexplicable things in the world,” Julia added. “But [as with] any situation of challenge and despair, we must find a way, as a family. It’s so hard to formulate a sentence about it outside the weepy huddle of my family.”

Fortunately, though, Julia and her family have managed to get through it by sticking together, and Julia often employs techniques like meditation and chanting to deal with her loss.

“[It] can be so joyous and also very quieting,” Julia said. “We share and just say, ‘This is a way I comfort myself.’”

Here’s hoping Julia and her family continue to stay close as they work through their grief and manage to find peace out of a terrible situation.